Ah yes, the classic beginning to a children's show that we all know and loved, or at least heard about and aren't particularly interested in, being introduced by what may have been Mario's first speaking role, complete with stereotypical Italian accent. I know I used to get up at 7 o'clock in the AM on Saturdays just to watch it, or at least did until I remembered the existence of VCRs and used logic to sleep in later.
But I haven't watched it since it was on TV, it not having been on DVD until recently and me not really having much interest in watching it anyway. That is, until recently when played LttP and Minish Cap and watched various other LoZ speed runs, which put me in the mood for old style Link and Zelda antics. Of course, for that to make sense you'd have to know that every so often the actual Super Mario Brothers cartoon segment in the show was replaced by a Legend of Zelda Animated Series segment. The show was basically based on the first Legend of Zelda game for the NES, and since that didn't have an actual fleshed out story or anything, they pretty much just went with that for the cartoon. "Why," you might say, "if it was based on the first game, which had exactly zero characterization for any characters, then what are Link, Zelda, and Ganon like in the show?". Now now, don't be so greedy you silly little doodad, we will get to that in time. By the first episode. I mean by the intro sequence. You know, by the time the famous line kicks in.
Anyhoo, we begin with the SMBSS rap, at least the main title one. There are also other versions for the SMB cartoon and the ending credits, but the cartoon one isn't on the LoZ episodes.
We're the Mario Brothers, and plumbing's our game
We're not like the others who get all the fame
If your sink is in trouble, you can call us on the double
We're faster than the others, you'll be hooked on the Brothers. Unh!
Well, I can only assume that this is supposed to be for a...commercial maybe for the live action brothers (Captain Lou Albano and Danny Wells) plumbing service. The first line indicates most of the name of their service, Mario Brothers Plumbing, as the rest of the line indicates that, yes, plumbing is indeed their game. Or, looking at it another way, they have joined some secret cabal of people who actually play plumbing as some sort of horribly disgusting sport. Hopefully not.
Now, the second line show that this is their somewhat clumsy attempt at getting the name of their plumbing service out there, so that they will garner more business and thus make more money, the goal of every business. Marketing! Here they are hoping that their ditty will stick in peoples' heads for years and years, coming out at random times while you're walking down the street so that everyone stares at you like you're nuts.
....
Anyway, the third line tells us that yes, if you have a plumbing problem then you will be able to call the Mario Brothers and they will deliver speedy service to alleviate your pipinoid needs. There is also a subtle but clever use of the word "double" here, because the Mario Brothers, there are two of them. That's like, kinda double.
Now, when they claim that they are faster the others we can only assume that they mean they will both arrive and fix your problems faster than other plumbers, who traditional will take a long while and are also slow to arrive, thus leaving you to be infatuated with their service and at that point you will call them the next time your toilet is backed up, or your shower won't drain, or your sink is filled with the remains of the thousands of corpses you have dismembered over the years. And then there is an extra "unh" at the end because every rap song at the time was required by federal and state law to include at least one "unh".
At this point the song deviates from being a commercial, and starts in with the intro animation to the cartoon, where we have badly rendered SMB characters run around aimlessly with pipes and flags and blocks and things from the games.
I don't...I don't even want to know.
Yo, you're in for a treat, so hang on to your seat
Get ready for adventure and remarkable feats
You'll meet Koopas, the Troopas, the Princess, and the others
Hangin' with the plumbers, you'll be hooked on the brothers to the brink!
Well, if we still want to believe this is for a commercial for their plumbing service...I suppose that can work out. "Yo", of course, was and remains a pseudoword indictating different things, ranging from "you", to "hey, to even "What the fuck? Did you just flip me off? You did NOT just flip me off, mother fucker!". I believe in this instance it would be appropriate to insert "hey" or a similar word in for the "yo". The rest of the line can be simplified down to the Mario Brothers fixing your sink entertainingly somehow, such as having some trained poodles bring them tools, or perhaps they operate naked...and are secretly hot chicks! ...ok, probably not. At any rate, they do something fun, not unlike the circus that is the show.
An adventure in plumbing! Sounds like an old 50s style film shown to school children on the wonders of modern plumbing. Aha, that's what the entertainment is, they show the plumbing films, which are entertaining somehow. And any feat where you have to shove your hand down into raw sewage in order to bring up a clump of hair and poo is pretty damn remarkable.
I can only assume that "koopa", "troopa", "and "princess" are slang terms for types of drain stoppages. Moving on from literal shit...
Again, hiring them once will surely provoke you to hire them time and time again. And then there's a brink. The brink of what? Nobody knows.
Speaking of the Princess:
No thanks!
After many moments from Super Mario Brothers 2 later, we finally arrive at our show.
Shiny!
We begin with an introduction of the premise.
Zelda: "This is the Triforce of Wisdom, Link. (Shiny and green equals wise) The evil wizard Ganon has the Triforce of Power. (He's got a pig-head! Whyyyyy does he have a pig-head?) Whoever gets both Triforces will rule this land forever! (For no readily apparent reason) You must help me, Link!
Link: "Hey, for you, Zelda, anything!" (Yeah, as will be increasingly and sometimes disturbingly apparent, he's pretty much doing this to get into her pants. And really, who can blame him)
And as Link gracefully descends onto a rock after jumping off a bridge, he lets Zelda get dunked in the river.
Zelda: "Nice job, hero!"
Link utters his classic line that will be known throughout the ages. That fairy girl in the pic is Sprite. She's annoying. Though not as annoying as Navi. Has the same friggin high-pitched voiced, though.
Link: "Well excuuuuuuuuuse me, Princess.!"
And finally (i.e. nearly two minutes into the video) the episode actually starts.
The Legend of Zelda Animated Series: Episode One - "Cold Spells" Written by Phil Harnage (Because who wouldn't want their name attached to this)
Ah, peaceful Hyrule, land of animals, land of magic, land of pointy-eared elf people. It's the Spring, and love is in the air for our heroes. Link plucks a lovely flower from a nearby tree and gives it to Zelda. Ah, young romance.
unfortunately for Link, Zelda is a bitch and makes him do Spring cleaning, showing for the first that are absolutely no goddamn inhabitants in the entire castle. no maids, no butlers, no cooks, no nurses, no nothing, just Link, Zelda, Sprite, and the King, plus some old guy that lives in the basement in a later episode. But Link, being the brave and noble hero that he is, doesn't want to clean.
Link: "I'll stand firm, I won't knuckle under, I'll look her right in the eye and...lie."
So our brave and noble hero goes about his plan to pretend he is sick so he doesn't have to clean. At this point Sprite arrives and Link tells her he has a cold, setting his brilliant plan into motion.
Meanwhile, Zelda is up in the tower in which the Triforce of Wisdom is located, which doubles as Link's room because he is ostensibly supposed to be guarding the Triforce. There is a disgustingly bafflingly large pile of dirty clothes on the floor. The Triforce, which always speak in an insipid rhyme for no apparent reason, reminds Zelda that neatness does not equal bravery, or some bull.
Zelda: "It offends my royal nose when I must smell these stinky clothes."
argggrrrggggllll...ow.
To alleviate the smell, Zelda opens to window. When suddenly...!
An evil...eagle...thing attacks! Oh no! Its claws flash into Zelda's eyes and she is blinded and horribly scarred forever! Oh wait, it just knocks her back onto the bed. Hefting a jug of water, she bashes the bird into the pile of dirt undergarments, then calmly walks over and suffocates it to death. I mean, dazes it so it flies away. Com on, Zelda, show some gumption! Ah ok, sprawling out on Link's bed will do.
Oh yeah, Link like!
Link: "Oh boy, smooching time!"
Why no, I am not making that up. After deftly avoiding the tacklings of Link, Zelda berates him for not cleaning, whereupon Sprite informs Zelda that Link in fact has a cold and therefore cannot commit to any of his maidly duties. Unfortunately for everybody, the...eagle thing overhears that Link is sick and informs Ganon of this purported fact.
Ganon: "Cleaning. MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
Of course! Ganon was just hoping that they would be cleaning because his next super zany eviltacular plot to capture the Triforce of Wisdom hinges on such a contingency. After this, we get to see what may be the greatest invention in the history of whatever-the-hell-elf-things-Hyrule-people-are-kind, the Jar of Evil!
Yes, with this Jar you can summon any number of nasty beasts, such as moblins, stalfos, gibdos and many others! For only 3 easy payment of 500 rupees you can have a never ending supply of inept baddies. When they're defeated, they don't get impaled or beheaded and leave behind a gooey mess to clean up! No, they just get zapped back into the jar to be released again at a later point! Call for yours today!
Back to our story, Ganon proceeds to summon a beetle...thing with a chair on top from the Jar, to ride on, I guess. And he zaps the eagle thing back into the Evil Jar of Evil. Back in Hyrule town we find Sprite magically shaking out a doormat. And then Ganon is now peering over a castle wall. I guess they'll just let anyone in town these days. He zaps Sprite and suddenly she is super-charged with magic or something. She takes an orange back for Link to eat.
Link is shown in his room swinging his sword around like the Star Wars kid. Sprite gives him the orange so he'll get better, but link doesn't want to get better so he throws the orange away. Wait...he wasn't sick, he was lying, so why did he have to throw the orange away? He could have just ate the damn thing and still pretended he was sick, how hard would that have been?
Here's a nice snapshot of the production values of this show.
Sprite is a brunette:
I mean, blonde:
Brunette:
Blonde:
Uh, ok, brunette:
Sequential scenes here, folks.
Using her new more powerful magic, Sprite causes the cleaning implements to start cleaning the room themselves. With magic! The buckets sprout fly wings and start splashing everything with water, while the brooms bounce around sweeping stuff. Sprite is perplexed, and then a wash cloth kicks her in the womb.
Ganon menacingly looks on from his perch upon the top of a tower. Menacingly in this case meaning that he's hugging the top to keep up there with his hand around his ear and looking like a dumbass. Meanwhile, the fly winged buckets have now poured so much water into the room that the water is now feet deep. The room at the top of a tower. Because goodness knows that there wouldn't be any possible way the water could escape the room. Of course not, until...Link opens the door and the water comes flooding out in a torrent, sending Link careening down the stairs.
Link: "Is that what they call a royal flush?"
HA HA HA HA HA! Oh God, Zelda, please kill him now!
Now that the Triforce of Wisdom is unguarded, Ganon rides his beetle up the side of the tower and into the Triforce room.
Regal, ain't he.
But his master plan worked, and he nabs the Triforce! Oh no!
Back in the other tower room, Sprite is still getting attacking by household cleaning items, and Link and Zelda arrive to help. Link begins by zapping a feather duster with his pink sword beams. You remember, the beams of pink pinkness that Link always shot from his sword to beat enemies. What, you don't remember anything of the sort? Well then maybe your brain is stupid. A bucket then dumps some water on Link, which causes him to fall over like a jackass. Zelda zaps a bucket with her bow of light arrows or whatever, but the washcloth smacks her in the face, she bumps into Link and they both fall over. Then Link is trapped in a bed sheet. Our heroes, ladies and gentlemen. Oh who am I kidding. Our heroes, one or two guys who might read this.
After a couple of mops have been whupping Link's bed sheet encased ass for a bit, Zelda decides to kick ass and use a magic boomerang to take out the rest of the supplies. (Supplies!) Apparently hitting even ordinary items with weapons causes them to disappear in Hyrule, I don't really know.
After all this, they discover the Triforce is missing and pursue Ganon into the underworld. They enter the underworld through a secret tree entrance, and immediately proceed to get caught by evil tree roots and dumped into a pit. Sprite follows.
Ganon now has both Triforces side by side (Yes I know there are three but the Triforce of Courage is never mentioned in the series ever) and Link and Zelda fall into a jar. Not the Evil Jar of Evil Jarry Evil, but another, slightly less evil jar that Link's pink sword beams can't penetrate. Ganon summons a Gohma to eat the prisoners.
Sprite shows up and zaps the Gohma, and Link is free. Link then makes a Zappa reference and Ganon accidentally fries the Gohma with a fiery blast. Of fire. Sprite also manages to zap the jar, and Zelda shoots Ganon with an arrow, sending him away for whatever reason. Even though the two Triforces were right next to each other, Zelda can only manage to grab the Triforce of Wisdom before they have to leave. And all is well.
The ending theme to the SMBSS plays, and we get to watch Lou Albano dancing around like a fool for your pennies.
Next up: Link takes a bath and some douche shows up!
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